Live film and theatre collide to form an elegiac reflection on trauma and connection.

When theatre meets film, the latter is often done in service of the former, supporting the live performance by projecting footage that provides backstory or adds to the mood and thematic concerns. But what happens when you reverse that relationship, and theatre instead services film?

That is the unusual approach that theatremaker Edith Podesta and filmmaker K. Rajagopal adopt, in their new work Pompeii. Premiering as part of the 2023 Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA), Pompeii is a live-cinema experience that ‘explores the archaeology of intimacy’. What that means is that the focus of the show is almost always on the screen, watching the theatrical events that unfold onstage beneath it, with a bustling camera crew filming, editing and changing sets live.

The effect of such a unique style of presentation serves to emphasise how tiny our human lives are, as we watch a motley group of residents go about their lives in their home – a condominium named Pompeii. Onstage, they are housed within containers acting as apartment units, each one fully furnished and fronted by a clear panel, as the crew work to replicate natural phenomena such as raindrops on the window, or shifting an entire screen in front of them to create a backdrop. This is done smoothly and silently, never once interrupting the flow of events or performance.

Echoing Brecht’s Epic Theatre, by seeing the mechanics of how everything is set up and doing away with the ‘magic’ of theatre by revealings its inner workings, we come to realise how everything is a construct. Even if the characters onstage do not realise the artificiality of their existence, we are privy to the external forces that control their environment, and understand that these characters are essentially trapped in a kind of prison, shaped by their own histories and approaches.

As the camera moves around from household to household, we often feel like a fly on the wall, watching close-ups of these characters’ faces, or shots that linger on still objects, all in monochrome black and white. The camera itself becomes a character, one that dictates our point of view, and highlights these characters’ inner fears and turmoil. Watching it play out live, despite knowing it is a recount from the narration, only adds to the tragedy, as we constantly wish we could reach out, speak to them, or do something to change the course of action.

Edith’s script is breathtakingly beautiful, poetic, intelligent and also humorous, employing her familiar style of punning and witty wordplay that makes it flow well, alongside being able to flit from philosophy to football. Being narrated by Remesh Panicker, the performance is sonorous, reflective and spoken with so much clarity, we fall into a dreamy thrall. Pompeii has been written almost like a novella, as we shift from chapter to chapter to catch glimpses of each household, sometimes from a third person point of view observing these unnamed characters, sometimes revealing their troubled backstories and inner thoughts, and always spending just enough time and writing enough dialogue to keep us intrigued and holding on to find out more.

The characters of Pompeii are also written to be familiar yet uniquely their own – a husband and wife (Pavan J Singh and Koh Wan Ching) who have grown apart, an expat widower (Helmut Bakaitis) who bonds with a child (Lauren Teh), who spends the day with him as her mother (Cindy Yeong) cleans the widower’s home. They are occasionally visited by the architect (Sharon Au) living next door, dealing with her own insecurities, while her composer housemate (Futoshi Moriyama) looks upon her with longing. The dialogue is is restrained but sufficient, and their interactions make for philosophical and existential musings amidst the seeming nothingness that happens, made up for by the narration.

As an act of slow cinema, audience members are forced to slow down alongside the workings of the camera, leading to an almost meditative experience. There is greater tragedy in knowing that these people will eventually face a disaster yet have no clue what’s about to strike, so caught up in their own lives that they become insular and closed-off. Yet by its end, there is some degree of satisfaction in watching how they do decide to come out of their shells, speak to each other, and bond as fellow human beings, ready to start anew and leave their tragedy behind.

There is no real need for reference to the tragedy of Pompeii, or even for the performance to be framed as live film – the strength of the piece already lies in its writing and performance. But by presenting it as such, there is something fleeting about the work that makes it differ from an actual film, knowing that all we have to take away is fragments and the experience, rather than a chance to re-watching it over and over.

All of this framing and contextualisation serves to make the little moments of humanity captured in this work all the more precious, and we are left to consider how unpredictable our own lives are. There is beauty in the ordinary, and what Pompeii does is make us realise how much there is to live for amidst the pain of existence. Death and destruction could well come at any moment, and rather than wallow in the past, what we should do is reach out and find ways to move on, living each day to its fullest, and connecting with fellow human beings.

Photo Credit: Moonrise Studios

Pompeii played from 2nd to 3rd June 2023 at Drama Centre Theatre, as part of the 2023 Singapore International Festival of Arts. More details available here

The 2023 Singapore International Festival of Arts ran from 19th May to 4th June 2023. Tickets and full details of programme available here

Production Credits:

Writer/Director: Edith Podesta

Live Cinema Director: K. Rajagopal

Performers: Narrator: Remesh Panicker Husband: Pavan J Singh Wife: Koh Wan Ching Architect: Sharon Au Composer: Futoshi Moriyama Expatriate: Helmut Bakaitis Cleaner: Cindy Yeong Child: Lauren Teh Ensemble: Chermaine Cham Lim Shien Hian Jorgan Ong Seet Yan Shan

Vocalist: Suhaili Safari

Assistant Director: Benjamin Lye

Set Designer: (.) Set Drafter: Ian Lee Costume Designer: Max Tan Lighting Designer: Gabriel Chan Associate Lighting Designer: Tai Zifeng Sound Artist/Composer: Jing Ng Sound Designer: Guo Ningru Sound Engineer: Ashley Fong Multimedia Programmer & Operator: Low Wee Cheng Hair Designer: Ashley Lim Makeup: Bobbie Ng Japanese Translator: Mio Nakano

Cinematographer: Shaun Neo Live Editor: Tan Ai Leng Camera Operators: Rachel Liew Matthew Chong Camera Assistant: Ben Lim

Producer: Shridar Mani (The Public Space) Production Manager: Cindy Yeong Technical Manager: Ian Tan Stage Manager: Carolene Liew (Backstage Affair) Assistant Stage Managers: Hannah Daud Georgia Sim